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Types of ends in a short story
Types of ends in a short story There is, of course, no one best way of ending a story. One must be guided by the nature of the story and of the single impression to be presented. One story may stop abruptly at the moment of climax; others must continue for a few sentences or for a few paragraphs. All, however, should end the moment the story is complete. All extra words at the last detract from the impression. A more simple, less prolonged end would have been possible inThe Madonna of the Future. One feels satisfied after Mr. Theobald's death to know that he lay buried in his beloved Florence, and one rather resents in the story the further intrusion of the minor characters. There is a close harmony here between structure and the nature of the story. Long musing and idle dreaming would not have been well adapted to a hurried treatment. Some of the long and partially irrelevant portions can be excused on that account, — but not the end. Henry James was developing a situation. Yet with the passing of the dreamer passed also the dream, and there the story should have ended. Too long an end, however relevant, may lose by failing to be sharp. Too short an end may be, however, just as dangerous, if it fail to complete the story and leave the reader not fully satisfied. An end may be, however, at once abrupt and complete. Climax and conclusion may be simultaneous. Nothing is left to be explained; the story is its own sufficient comment. The end is the natural and unmistakable outcome of the plot, yet it may be unsuspected until the last sentence or even until the last word. Progress towards climax may be furthered by devices so subtly concealed that they become evident only after the story is reviewed. Such construction attains the ideal of Short- story form in rapidity and directness. Notice the end of Stevenson's Markheim: "He confronted the maid upon the threshold with something like a smile. "You had better go for the police,' said he: 'I have killed your master." At the end of the first of these sentences, the reader is still in suspense. Is Markheim smiling, one wonders, at the thought of killing the maid, or at victory over his own evil nature? The last sentence relieves the suspense entirely by giving the answer. One cares to know no more. The story is complete. 0. Henry is a master of this sort of ending. The end of nearly every one of his stories is a surprise. Until the final paragraph of .After Twenty Years, one has had no suspicion that the policeman who first appears is Jimmy Wells. Yet when one reviews the story one recognizes indications of the outcome. When the policeman saw the stranger leaning against the door, he slowed his pace and walked up to him. He would have acted thus on his usual round. Yet in the light of the story's end one sees in this commonplace the action of a man eager to recognize in the stranger his former friend. Later, he asks of Bob, "Going to call time on him sharp?" Jimmy Wells is making his plan. Still later, the plain-clothes man impersonating Jimmy speaks of his "position in one of the city departments." These remarks seem only natural, yet as one looks back, they are especially significant. Without them, the story would be incomplete and unsatisfactory, for the end would seem an accidental, rather than a necessary, logical, outcome. Many stories with ends such as these are likely to become wearisome. One fails to appreciate surprises, once they have become frequent, and one turns with relief to a more gradual end. Often the nature of the story is such that climax and conclusion cannot be made to coincide. The climax itself introduces new questions. Until these are answered, the story is not complete. Suspense may be relieved while interest in the effect of climax is sustained. This end simply gathers up loose strands and satisfies final curiosity. In The Revolt of Mother, several paragraphs intervene between climax and end. These are necessary to the completeness of the story. One needs to know the effect of Mrs. Penn's act on the neighborhood and especially on Mr. Penn. The full force of the climax for the two main characters in Theydoes not become evident at once. In The Man Who Would Be King, the end is long and somewhat complex. After the climax three things are yet necessary to the completion of the story:the narrator must present the fulfilment of the latter half of the purpose expressed at the beginning, and bring his story to a close; the reader must be satisfied as to the fate of Carnehan. Usually, an end is less complex. The more simple the end, the more forceful, as a rule, will be the single impression. This sort of end, too, may conclude with a surprise, as in Marjorie Daw. In this case, also, it is interesting to notice how the conclusion has been prepared for during the story. In the fifth letter, Edward Delaney says that Marjorie Daw seems "like some lovely phantom that had sprung into existence out of the smoke-wreaths." In the eighth letter, he calls her "a shadow, a chimera," and he speaks of himself as "in the incongruous position of having to do with mere souls, with natures so finely tempered that I run some risk of shattering them in my awkwardness." In the ninth letter, again, "it all appears like an illusion, — the black masses of shadow under the trees, the fireflies whirling in Pyrrhic dances among the shrubbery, the sea over there, Marjorie sitting on the hammock." Of course it appears an illusion to Edward Delaney, but it all seems real to every one else until the last sentence. There is frequently found yet another sort of end. It is neither climax nor the result of climax. It answers no questions. It is simply an intensifier of single effect, or a narrative comment. It is easy to overdo this sort of ending. It is easy to make irrelevant remarks or unduly to prolong the relevant. It is possible, however, to make this end a means of deepeninethe simple impression and completing the story. A comment may but express the feeling already in a reader's heart, as in The Outcasts of Poker Flat where John Oakhurst is called "the strongest and yet the weakest of the outcasts of Poker Flat." Mrs. Knollgs might have ended with the words, "She was living; he was dead; and she was two and forty years older than he." We should have been satisfied and have asked no further questions. Yet the longer end brings out more fully the pathetic sweetness of the story and realizes more completely the final triumph of hope. Notice the final paragraph of The Masque of the Red Death: "And now was acknowledged the presence of the Red Death. He had come like a thief in the night. And one by one dropped the revellers in the blood- bedewed halls of their revel, and died each in the despairing posture of his fall. And the life of the ebony clock went out with that of the last of the gay. And the flames of the tripods expired. And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all." This end is unnecessary to the understanding of the story, but it intensifies mightily the impression of horror that pervades the whole. In a story of perfect workmanship there should be harmony between end and beginning. Often it is noticeable between even the first and the last sentences. This harmony unifies the final impression as perhaps no other structural device can. Yet the device need not seem artificial, for it effects but a full close and manifests itself often so subtly as to be scarcely recognizable. It may appear as a correspondence of atmosphere, or in mood contrast, in identity of character, in the realization of some suggestion made at the beginning. In After Twenty Years, the first paragraph pictures the typical policeman; the last sentence shows the same conscientious guardian of the peace with the heart of a friend. The first sentence of The Outcasts of Poker Flat awakens expectations in regard to John Oakhurst; the last sentence stills them. In Mrs. Knollys,the closing sentence reverts to the glacier described at the beginning. The last sentence of They harmonizes with the vague, elusive atmosphere of an indeterminate dreamland suggested at the opening of the story: "She left me to sit a little longer, only a little longer, by the screen, and I heard the sound of her feet die out along the gallery above." End and beginning may be so skilfully wrought into harmony that they suggest much of the intervening story. Notice the first sentence of The Cask of Amontillado, and the last three: "The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as I best could; but when he ventured upon insult, I vowed revenge." - "Against the new masonry I re-erected the old rampart of bones. For the half of a century no mortal has disturbed them. In pace requiescat." One does not know the circumstances of revenge, yet one knows the means. The end is the fulfilment of the beginning. The last sentence is particularly expressive. The revenge was complete, for the avenger had never felt remorse. Thus end and beginning should be considered not as separate entities, but as varying expressions of the dominant note of the story, set in the places made akin by their importance for emphasis.